Applying to Recruitment Firms: How to Write a Resume

A resume is your first impression when you apply to recruitment firms or executive search firms. Putting in time to craft a well-written, detailed work history is worthwhile. Here are some fundamentals on creating your resume:

Put the following contact information on top: full name, phone number, email, city, state, LinkedIn profile link. An address is not required, but the city and state should match the area in which you intend to get a job. Resumes without phone numbers and cities tend to be passed up by recruitment agencies and staffing agencies. Your full name should be in the largest font, much larger than the rest of the contact information. Center alignment is needed for this entire section.

Underneath your contact information should be the summary of your experience that directly applies to the job you’re seeking. Describe in detail how your skills are relevant to the job at hand, mention facts and figures as much as possible. After your summary, make a new section below called “career objective”. This is a few-sentence paragraph describing your goals for your next job.

Work history is the next item. Mention your employers in reverse-chronological order. List the company name and location in bold font. On the next line, put your position’s title and the dates employed. If you’re currently working, always leave out an end date and put “current”. Mentioning an end date could be the difference between an executive search firm or recruiting agency calling you for interview or not. It’s often assumed that an end date means you’re currently unemployed. Below your position, describe your work using a series of bullet points. Talk about what you did on a day-to-day basis, not what you did once per month. The more descriptive, the better. Mentioning specific numbers and software programs is always more effective than generalities.

Education should be below your work history, unless it’s a distinguished school in which case you can put it at the top. After education, the last section on your resume is technical skills and certifications/licenses. You can list popular software programs here such as Salesforce, Oracle, Excel, Outlook, etc.

Formatting and margins are important. It shows organization and your attention to detail. If you wrote a series of bullet points that continues onto the next page, re-align it so all the bullet points are on the same page. The sections of Summary, Career Objective, Work History, Education, Technical Skills should all have horizontal lines between them. Print it out to make sure it prints correctly. Microsoft Word is the recommended format by staffing agencies and recruiting firms. A typical resume will be 1-2 pages. Any longer should be reserved only for executive roles.

These are the main points to keep in mind when writing your resume. Good luck on your job search!

At ARC Group, we focus on helping our clients grow by offering a unique blend of staffing, employment and temp services in the talent acquisition space. Our services include helping clients find the best talent for contract, temp to perm, and permanent placement opportunities. We also offer a unique and trademarked research recruitment solution, Recruitment Intelligence™, as well as retained, contingency and consulting services.

With our proven 7 stage end-to-end recruitment process we provide unsurpassed quality that most employment and temp staffing agencies are unable to offer. With over a hundred employees and a score of locations throughout the country, we have asserted ourselves as a leader in the recruitment, staffing, employment and consulting sectors.